SIMPLIFICATION IN THE BRITISH PRESS: BINARY OPPOSITIONS IN CRIME REPORTS

Renata Jančaříková

doi:10.5817/DI2013-2-15

SIMPLIFICATION IN THE BRITISH PRESS: BINARY OPPOSITIONS IN CRIME REPORTS

Vol.6,No.2(2013)

Renata Jančaříková

https://doi.org/10.5817/DI2013-2-15

PDF

Abstract

This paper explores crime reports on verdicts and sentences in child/teenager murder cases in the British press with a view to demonstrating that ‘simplifi cation’ is one of the signifi cant values of crime reporting, regardless of the type of newspaper (Jewkes 2004). The analysis illustrates how both quality and popular British newspapers employ ‘binary oppositions’ (i.e. a typical feature of simplifi cation), such as good vs. evil, in order to communicate to their audiences the social status of victims and killers and at the same time traditional social values and norms. The employment of ‘binary oppositions’ in noun phrases that introduce and/or classify victims and killers thus enables newspapers to appeal to the public and act, or at least try to act, as moral guardians.

Keywords:
simplification; binary oppositions; crime reports; victim; killer; British press; good vs. evil; noun phrase

References

Bell, A. (1991) The Language of News Media. Oxford: Blackwell.

Biressi, A. and Nunn, H. (eds) (2008) The Tabloid Culture Reader. Maidenhead: Open
University Press.

Cavaglion, G. (2008) ‘Bad, mad or sad? Mothers who kill and press coverage in Israel.’
Crime, Media, Culture, 4(2), 271-278.

Caviglia, F. (2006) ‘Understanding public discourse about violence and crime.’ In:
Lassen, I., Strunck, J. and Vestergaard, T. (eds) Mediating Ideology in Text and Image.
Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 119-144.

Franklin, B. (2008) ‘Newspapers: trends and developments.’ In: Franklin, B. (ed.) Pulling
Newspapers Apart. Analysing Print Journalism. London and New York: Routledge.
1-35.

Jančaříková, R. (2009) ‘Newspaper reporting: Cohesive devices as means contributing
to the effectiveness of news.’ In: Hůlková, I. and Jančaříková, R. (eds) Exploring
Cohesion and Coherence in English Discourse. Brno: Masaryk University. 109-119.

Jančaříková, R. (2010) ‘Crime news in British press: Expressing positive and negative
status of core participants.’ Discourse and Interaction, 3 (1), 35-61.

Jewkes, Y. (2004) Media and Crime. London: Sage Publications.

Jucker, A. H. (1992) Social Stylistics. Syntactic Variation in British Newspapers. Berlin
and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Keeble, R. (2006) The Newspapers Handbook. 4th ed. London and New York: Routledge.

Richardson, J. E. (2007) Analysing Newspapers. An Approach from Critical Discourse
Analysis. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Swales, J. (1990) Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.

Temple, M. (2008) The British Press. Maidenhead: Open University Press.

Van Dijk, T. A. (1998) News as Discourse. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Van Dijk, T. A. (ed.) (2011) Discourse Studied: A Multidisciplinary Introduction. London:
Sage Publications.

Van Leeuwen, T. (1996) ‘The representation of social actors.’ In: Caldas-Coulthard, C. R.,
Coulthard, M. (eds) Texts and Practices. London and New York: Routledge. 32-70.

Wardle, C. (2008) ‘Crime reporting.’ In: Franklin, B. (ed.) Pulling Newspapers Apart.
Analysing Print Journalism. London: Routledge. 144-152.

White, P. R. R. (2006) ‘Evaluative semantics and ideological positioning in journalistic
discourse.’ In: Lassen, I., Strunck, J. and Vestergaard, T. (eds) Mediating Ideology in
Text and Image. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 37-67.

Worcester, R. M. (1998) ‘Demographics and values: What the British public reads and
what it thinks about its newspapers.’ In: Stephenson, H. and Bromley, M. (eds) Sex,
Lies and Democracy. The Press and the Public. London and New York: Longman.
39-48.

Metrics